The invention relates to an apparatus for treating blood taken from a human body or an animal.
Apparatus for the treatment of human or animal blood with oxygen, activated oxygen or with so-called Singuletoxygen are generally known. The use of oxygen-containing treatment agents will be designated below by the expression "gas treatment". With this treatment, the blood taken is subjected to gas in a vacuum bottle or a plastic bag and is then returned to the human or animal blood vessels. Such apparatus are described in DE OS 12 38 884 and 43 40 730; they are used for the oxygen enrichment of the blood.
DE OS 35 21 802 discloses an apparatus for the gas treatment of blood by the hematogen oxidation therapy (HOT), wherein, during removal from a body, the blood is pumped into a collection container into which, subsequently, an apparatus for the HOT therapy is inserted. According to this publication, the blood is foamed in the collection container by the addition of oxygen, and is then forced, by the excess pressure generated with the addition of oxygen, through a quartz glass bulb into a second collection container. During the transfer, the foamed blood is subjected to UV radiation. From the second collection container, the blood is returned to the blood vessels.
DE OS 44 10 411 discloses an apparatus for the extra-corporal treatment of blood which, instead of a vacuum bottle, uses a flexible blood bag which facilitates HOT treatment and provides a completely mounted re-transfusion set which, altogether, is contained in a relatively small package in a sterile manner. However, since no vacuum is employed for the removal of blood, the blood removal procedure is relatively time consuming.
For this reason, methods which use vacuum bottles are still in wide use since they permit rapid removal of the blood.
A problem encountered with the gas treatment of blood is caused by the fact that the gas is supplied from a high pressure storage bottle by way of a pressure reducing valve. the pressure reducing valves generally used can usually be adjusted only to a relatively high discharge pressure so that it is difficult to avoid the formation of excess pressure in the vacuum bottle or in the blood bag during the gas treatment.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a procedure by which the desired amount of gas can be supplied to the blood in a simple manner without the generation of excess pressure in the vacuum bottle or in the blood bag.